Luke's Unexpected Journey

"Are you Luke?" The man asked.

"Yes sir." I replied.

"Alright, my name is Silas McCauley. Nice to meet you son." He said with a smile as he shook my hand.

"Nice to meet you too Mr. McCauley, I've heard a lot about you." I said with a grin.

We both stepped into the kitchen and sat down at the small kitchen table where I had taken most of my meals while growing up. It was strange but I felt like this was home again, even though it wasn't. "So Luke why don't you tell me why you're here? You know that your mom has been worried about you for a long time now." He said with a concerned look on his face.

"It's hard to explain Mr. McCauley, but I just started having these panic attacks every once in a while and it really scared me so much that I needed to get away from everything."

Mr. McCauley sighed "Well Luke, when did all this start happening?"

I thought back to the day that I was diagnosed with autism and began telling him everything that happened after the diagnosis and how afraid I was of going out into the world and finding a job because of the condition. "How long have you been living with your mother?" Mr. McCauley asked curiously, he seemed interested in what I had been through over the last couple of years.

"For as long as I can remember, she couldn't work because she had me and my sister to take care of so she got disability payments from the government and Dad left her when we were little so that pretty much left me to do most of the work around here."

Mr. McCauley laughed at that statement "Luke you've always worked hard around here, you've helped us keep our fields tilled and planted for years now and it looks like you kept everything up pretty well too." He said with a smile as he pointed out some of his equipment outside waiting for repair in various ways like bent steel or rusted metal parts that needed replaced if any way possible. "Now Luke do you think you would be able to help me out around here by helping me fix this stuff up?" He asked excitedly. "I mean there is plenty of money up in Seattle but you know what they say; there's no place like home!" He said as he stood up from his chair and walked toward his toolshed out back to get started on some repairs that needed done around the place, leaving me in silence thinking about what he just said while he went to work on getting things done around his property while I sat alone at the table wondering if this was truly God's will brought forth by my mother's prayers all these years ago?